


The Fur

by goodnightfern



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Background Sam/Eileen, M/M, Netflix in the Bunker, a coda of sorts, season 12, to 12x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 18:29:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9619919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: There's strength in being soft.





	

**Author's Note:**

> today misha collins posted an image with that 'be soft' quote attributed to kurt vonnegut but kurt vonnegut never said that and rather than sperg out and make a twitter account i did this and now i'll just... post it, real quick like, and then edit it three days later when i notice a really obvious typo you know how it goes
> 
> the real source of the quote is [right here](http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/2007/08/fur.html)

Dean doesn’t know how he’s missed it. 

Sometimes he still thinks of Sam as a fresh-faced college kid whining about his laptop. 

Sam has grown ruthless. Sam has grown compassionate. Sam breaks legs and leaves first aid kits. Maybe it was the law school that instilled this sense of scales in him. Sam holds the balance of justice in his giant hands - ready to make, ready to break.

Right now the waitress is flirting with Sam. Sam with the vampire gunk still under his fingernails. 

Dean doesn’t notice Cas stealing a fry off of his plate because he’s too busy thinking that used to be him.  

Sam got a salad on the side with his bacon burger. No cheese. Just bacon. Dean looks down at his plate of fries and the way his belly pokes a bit out over his jeans. That one spot in his shoulder twitches. He’s invisible to the waitress.

Cas takes another fry. 

“Try this,” Sam says, wiggling a cherry tomato across the table towards Cas. “Tomatoes. They’re healthy.”

“I like tomatoes,” Dean says. “I like the little yellow ones.”

Cas takes the tomato. 

The waitress chuckles. It’s a lonely night for her; three in the morning and they’re the only diners present. She’s pretending to clean the table next to theirs. “You sure you don’t wanna order anything?” she asks Cas.

“He’s fine,” Dean says.

“Actually, I’d like a side salad. With croutons, please. And… whatever dressing he has,” Cas says, pointing at Sam’s side of honey mustard. The waitress looks pleased, and Sam winks at her.

Cas has vampire gunk under his nails, too. 

Dean’s are clean, because he washed his hands first thing when they got to the diner and he didn’t think about Benny and his big steady hands at all.    
  
These vampires weren’t like Benny.

Cas gets his salad and eats like a normal fucking person and Sam is grinning like he’s won something and Dean stares at his fries, his finger and his thumb squeezing the white mushy part beyond the crispy outside layer. When Cas gets tired of his salad, he pushes it to Dean and it doesn’t even occur to Dean to do anything but eat it. Sam’s fork comes reaching over, because even though his plate is clean the big bastard is still hungry.

Ruthless.

Dean winces when his fork splits a tomato.

If Dad were here, he’d notice something was wrong with Dean. He’d tell him off for being soft, for being a prissy little bitch. He’d make some snide comment about Cas. Dad has been dead for years. 

“I’m full,” Dean says, pushing away the salad. “Let’s - let’s get the bill, huh? We got three hours to Lebanon.” He wants to tease Sam and tell him to leave his number on the receipt but he doesn’t. He wants to ask Sam to drive but he doesn’t. 

If Sam was driving, Dean could sit in the back with Cas and watch his stony profile. See how it softens only when Dean talks to him. The intermittent streetlights would catch his eyes, and Dean could see years of buried resentment there. Ghosts of torture and pain, the tired lines of difficult choices and no right paths. 

As it is, he has to deal with seeing Sam out of the corner of his eye. Sam smiling and leaning back in his seat, relaxed and happy. As if life has never happened to him, as if he’s only floating by. 

Where Cas is a raw wound, Sam is a faded scar. Dean doesn’t know how he fits that analogy. He’s the broken bone, maybe. He’s the bleeding victim, and Sam and Cas just hold him up and drag him home.

  
  
  


He tries to ask Cas if Sam seems different at all but of course that’s a dead end. So he tries to ask Sam if Cas seems different but then Sam asks if they’re fighting again, and thanks him for giving him fair warning this time because seriously, he lives here too. As if Dean doesn’t get enough of his smarmy faces and loud coughs every time he and Cas have a - a disagreement. 

Because Sam is never a part of it. 

Hell, Sam is the one flirting with servers and witnesses now. 

Not that Dean wants that anymore. It just hadn’t occurred to him before. Sammy was supposed to be the fumbling virgin, the big nerd with floppy bangs and now Sam is texting someone on his phone and he won’t say who it is while Dean tries to talk to him about Cas and it doesn’t make sense. Dean shouldn’t be drawing the parallels he’s drawing here. 

Sam smirks at a message. Dean tries to peek and see what it is. 

“You remember Eileen?” 

“Eileen?” From that one hunt. Sam and her seemed to get along. Dean thinks so. He had a lot on his mind, between Amara’s weirdness and Cas sinking further and further into something and it was just a lot.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, what?” Dean asks. 

“Dude, how have you not noticed? I’ve been practicing sign language, like, every day.”

There’s a lot of shit Dean doesn’t notice. 

“So - “

“It’s not serious or anything. We just - we’re having fun. Maybe I’ll hit her up on a hunt or something. Anything else you wanna know, or do you wanna keep bugging me about Cas?” 

Dean makes some aborted choking sound and leaves him alone. 

Mom can’t answer his questions because she doesn’t know them. She doesn’t know Cas. Maybe it’d be interesting to get her perspective, though. These three men suddenly in her life.

Maybe she’d just vague at him.

They’ve got to move the television out of Sam’s room, because it’s weird to sit on Sam’s bed with Cas. Yeah, it just makes him feel funny, like the two of them are intruding. But Sam lets them sit on the bed, so that doesn’t make sense. 

Cas is watching a bloody documentary about the Crusades. When Dean sits down next to him he doesn’t shift over.

“Why you wanna watch this kind of thing? Haven’t you had enough of holy wars?”

“Their information is inaccurate.”

“Gimme the remote. I’ll find something good for us to watch.”

Cas does not hand over the remote. Instead he says, “Dean, if you had completed that sigil, I wouldn’t have been killed. That’s not how that spell works.”

There’s nothing but weird documentaries on Cas’s recently watched list. Gory history and violent wars. “So I shoulda just blasted you all the way to Antarctica, then. You without your wings. Stuck with the penguins.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Well, what are you saying?”

“It’s okay to be soft.”

There’s a documentary about puppies. It’s literally just called Puppies. That could be good. Something nice for them to watch. One of Dean’s hands is down between his thigh and Castiel’s. When Cas brushes against it, it freezes and shivers and then tenses up again. 

“The world has made Sam hard,” Cas continues. “That’s all. Everyone responds differently to trauma. And you - it’s made you soft.”

“You know,” Dean says thickly, “Vonnegut never said that. It’s - it’s a common misattribution.”

He doesn’t ask what the world did to Cas. He sees it all the time. 

The puppies are really cute. They’re bouncing all over the screen and it’s nice to watch. Cas has a small smile on his lips, and his hand seems happy on top of Dean’s.

When Dean kisses him, he remembers to do it soft. 

Sam makes fun of them for watching a fluffy puppy movie, but he sprawls out on the end of the bed anyways. Dean rests his feet on top of Sam’s ass just to hear him complain. 

After that, Netflix recommends a movie about kittens.   
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> talk 2 me about sam


End file.
